


Home Repair for Beginners

by Hibou_Gris



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: F/M, Getting Back Together, Iron Fist Exchange, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 13:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18470020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hibou_Gris/pseuds/Hibou_Gris
Summary: Colleen and Danny, and fixing what's broken.





	Home Repair for Beginners

**Author's Note:**

  * For [16lena246](https://archiveofourown.org/users/16lena246/gifts).



> For 16lena246 for the Iron Fist Fanworks Exchange, for the prompt: Ironwing S3 reunion. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

Colleen opens the door to the dojo and walks in, Danny following close at her back. She lays her katana down on the desk chair, turns on the lamp, then takes off her jacket, wincing at the pull in her shoulders and arms - the familiar aftermath of a fight, along with fresh bruises on her face and ribs, soreness in her neck and hands and quads, and some leftover shakiness from the adrenaline rush. She wants a shower, food and sleep, in that order.

But. But Danny is standing beside her in the dojo for the first time in months, shrugging out of his long coat, bending over to take off his boots, and Colleen - wants. Wants a lot of things, too much, more than she should let herself have, if she’s being honest. She’s achy and exhausted, and from the careful way Danny’s moving she’s dead certain that his bad leg is hurting him; and besides, before rushing into anything they should talk, should be mature, responsible adults who communicate and all that shit - but.

_After she had sent the last goon slamming to the floor, Colleen had turned around to see Danny standing in the doorway, Orson Randall’s guns dangling from his hands, Ward at his elbow, both of them looking scruffy and jet-lagged._

_“Hi,” Danny had said._

_“Hi,” Colleen had answered - breathless, knocked sideways with surprise and unexpected happiness._

_They’d stared, frozen, until Ward had said, dry as desert sand, “We’re here to rescue you.”_

_Danny had laughed at the expression on Colleen’s face. “Misty said you might need back-up, but - I guess not.”_

_“Yeah, I’m just about done here,” Colleen had said. “So. Why don’t we go somewhere and catch up?”_   

Danny straightens up, holding his coat in his hands. He moves to hang it on the hook by the door, the usual place, the same place he always - Colleen doesn’t think she says anything, or does anything, maybe it’s just the way she’s staring at him, but Danny freezes in place, still clutching the coat: looking at her.

“Colleen,” he says, low. He’s a little thinner than she remembers, his hair a little longer. The lamp’s soft glow leaves half his face in shadow, but she still knows every line by heart - the curve of his mouth, the shape of his jaw, the way his eyes go intent when he looks at her like this.

Like __this__ , god. It’s too much too fast, exactly what she was afraid of, and Colleen takes a step back. Tries to think of something normal to say.

“Do you want water? Or a beer?”

Danny blinks, looks away, down at the coat in his hands. “Sure. Uh, a beer. Sure.”

He turns to hang the coat on the hook, along with his gun belt, and Colleen breathes out slowly, goes to get two beers from the fridge. She twists off the caps, then holds one out to Danny, but he’s too busy looking around the dojo to notice.

“It looks different,” he says. Colleen can’t tell whether he thinks that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“I sold some furniture on Craigslist,” Colleen says. “I’ve been - making some changes.”

“Yeah,” Danny says, finally reaching over to take the beer, and he’s smiling, just a quirk of his lips.

_They had spent one evening sitting on the bed, drinking beer and eating take-out, drawing up possible floor-plans for the dojo-soon-to-be-apartment. It was so soon after Midland Circle that their bruises were still dark and garish; Danny had rope marks on his arms and neck; Colleen’s hair smelled like dust and smoke._

_“Are you sure?” Danny had said. “We could wait. If you want to reopen the dojo - ”_

_“I don’t,” Colleen had snapped._

_Danny had said, “Okay,” and his eyes were soft, soft, and Colleen couldn’t stand it. She had put down her pencil, pushed the takeout cartons to safety, and crawled across the bed into his arms._

_“Let’s make something new,” she had whispered into Danny’s neck, and Danny had held her close and said, “Yeah, we will.”_

Danny tilts his beer bottle towards hers. They tap the necks together with a gentle clink, and Danny says, “To change.”

“To change. And to new beginnings,” Colleen says, not looking away when Danny meets her eyes, surprise and something like joy racing across his face, and god, she’s missed that, the way Danny shows his feelings so openly, barely ever holding back or hiding.

“To new beginnings,” Danny echoes, and they drink.

Colleen moves over to the table and sits down, and Danny joins her. He glances across the room and says, “You got rid of the couch.”

“It had bloodstains,” Colleen says, and Danny grimaces.

“Not just yours,” Colleen adds, without thinking, because Danny’s eyes go wide, and shit - she shouldn’t have let that slip.

“What?”

“It was only a minor - very minor! Uh, gunshot wound,” Colleen says, wincing.  

“What, when? Why didn’t you tell me?” Danny reaches out to touch her shoulder and then stops his hand mid-air, hanging awkwardly for a second before pulling back.

Colleen is both relieved and disappointed. She shrugs, takes a drink of her beer to buy time.

“It was just a graze,” she says - which is a lie. “I didn’t want to worry you, or make you think you had to come back. I was fine.” True. Claire had fixed her up with steady hands and biting sarcasm, Misty had watched over her and brought her groceries and made not-jokes about making Colleen wear Kevlar from now on, and Colleen had worked out how to use the Iron Fist to heal herself, the dragon’s flame burning clean and bright, knitting her flesh back together; within a week she’d been almost as good as new. “But the couch was pretty much a write-off.”

_Halfway through the dojo’s renovation, Danny had dropped a hammer on his foot. He had been out the night before patrolling, coming home in the morning pale and tired but triumphant - like a half-feral cat that spent its nights fighting in alleyways only to turn up in the kitchen with big innocent eyes, looking for breakfast, Colleen had sometimes thought uncharitably._

_He had still wanted to help with the renovation, despite running on no sleep, and Colleen wasn’t his goddamn mother, so she had rolled her eyes and handed him a hammer so that he could help her with the shelving she was putting together. Five minutes later, Danny had been leaning against the wall, yawning, and the hammer had slipped from his lax hand and landed squarely on his right foot._

_After the first surprised yelp, he had shaken it off, claimed to be fine, but his eyes had gone tight and he was limping slightly and still trying to help with the stupid shelving, and Colleen had reached the end of her patience._

_“Danny! For god’s sake, get an ice-pack for your foot, go sit on the couch, and let me finish this by myself.”_

_He had stomped off towards the mini-fridge without another word, and Colleen had bent her head over the shelving, silently stewing in her own anger and irritation, which had already halfway turned to regret._

_She had finished up quickly and gone to sit next to Danny on the couch, curling in next him, their arms brushing. “Sorry. Sometimes I - it’s hard. When you’re gone all night.”_

_“I’m sorry, too,” Danny had said, putting the ice-pack on the floor and reaching over to lace their hands together. “I want to be there for you, I want -”_

_Colleen had kissed him, then - soft and quick, then harder, slower, sliding her arm around him to tug him closer. “You know, we’ve haven’t broken in this couch yet,” she had said, and Danny had laughed against her mouth and pulled her onto his lap._

“I wish I had been here,” Danny says, quiet.

Yeah, well, you weren’t, Colleen thinks, but she doesn’t say it. It’s true, but it’s not fair, not entirely. She looks down, starts picking at the label on her beer bottle. “Anyway. What about you? You didn’t leave any details out of all those emails you sent me?”

Danny immediately looks guilty, and Colleen grins. “Did you get kidnapped again? Did you get kidnapped more than once?”

“No,” Danny says with great dignity, clearly lying his ass off.

“I’ll get it out of Ward,” Colleen says, and nudges Danny’s shoulder playfully with her beer bottle, before taking another drink. She’s so tired that she’s starting to get a buzz off of half a beer.

“I swore him to silence.”

“Oh yeah?”

Danny leans in with mock-solemnity. “I made him pinky-swear. It was a very serious vow.”

_Ward had given them the dining table as a housewarming present - had shown up unannounced one evening with a pack of delivery guys hauling in a huge, obviously extremely expensive table, and Colleen had stood next to Danny with her arms crossed, not even trying to hide just how pissed off she was about it._

_It had felt like another bribe, like Ward trying to buy his way into their good graces, and Colleen had stared him down, unimpressed, while Danny shifted uncomfortably next to her. She knew that Danny had forgiven Ward, that they had repaired their fractured relationship somehow, but it was moments like this that for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why._

_Danny had turned to her and said quietly, “We don’t have to keep it if you don’t want to,” and Colleen had given serious consideration to telling Ward where he could stick his damn table._

_Ward had initially seemed baffled by Colleen’s obvious displeasure, but then the penny must have dropped because the smile had slid off of his face as he’d glanced back and forth between her and Danny._

_“Wait - you know that this isn’t - Danny said you still needed a table so I -” He had been more flustered than she’d ever seen him, outside of the time he’d been covered in blood and broken glass and suffering from a head wound. “Look, I can return it, it’s no problem.”_

_He had looked - sincere, for once, instead superior or sardonic, and Colleen had let her arms drop to her sides and looked over at the table. The worst thing was, it actually was a beautiful table._

_“No, it’s - nice. We’ll keep it,” she had said, summoning up every drop of graciousness she could muster. “Thank you.”_

_“You’re welcome,” Ward had said, after a moment, but he was the one who had sounded grateful._

Colleen smiles at Danny, that warm, surprised happiness rising up in her again; she’s leaning in towards him, mirroring him, their arms nearly touching.

“Are you here to stay?” she asks. It bubbles out of her before she can think better of it.

“Colleen -” Danny says, voice intent, so she rushes in, speaking over him, “I mean - did you find what you were looking for?”

Danny lays his hands out flat on the table, stares down at them. “Yeah. Some of it, anyway. There’s - I have a lot to tell you.”

Colleen rubs her hand over the dragon tattoo on her forearm, tries to soothe the flow of her chi. It’s become a habit of late; she draws comfort from it: touching the dragon, both literally and metaphorically. Danny’s eyes shift towards her, watching the movement of her fingers.

“Me too,” Colleen says. “I have stuff to tell you, that is.” About the Fist, about their neighborhood, about the city, about Luke, about her mother - months worth of changes that Danny missed, only a few broad strokes shared through the emails and texts that they’d exchanged.

_She had texted Misty the day after Danny had left - just so that Misty knew what the situation was, Colleen had told herself - and Misty had turned up at the dojo a couple of hours later with beer and a tub of ice cream._

_“You didn’t have to -” Colleen had said, but Misty had given her a flat look, and Colleen had subsided._

_“It’s traditional,” Misty had said. She’d looked around the dojo; Danny had tidied up most of the mess, but there was still plenty of evidence that a knock-down, drag-out fight had gone down. “Let me put the ice cream in the freezer, and I’ll help you clean up first.”_

_“Thanks,” Colleen had said, and she must have sounded - god, she didn’t know what she sounded like, as lost as she felt, maybe: exhausted and furious and achingly alone, and underneath it all the wild thrill and power of the dragon thrumming through her blood and bones, making and remaking her anew._

_Misty wasn’t a hugger, but she had hugged Colleen then, reached out and pulled her in, and Colleen had sagged against her, closing her eyes to keep any tears in._

_Misty had patted her back, had said, “Okay, you’re okay, you got this. We got this. Let’s fix this place up.”_

“But for right now - “ Colleen says, and Danny is looking at her again, looking at her like she’s a sunrise, like he never wants to look away, and - she drops her eyes, downs the rest of her beer. “I need a shower. I need to sleep. I can’t -”

“Okay,” Danny says, clearing his throat, “yeah, okay, I should -”

“Stay,” Colleen says. “You should stay.”

Danny’s face is an open window, hope shining through like sunlight, and Colleen reaches out, can’t help it, and takes his hand in hers. “Stay, and we’ll talk in the morning.”

~


End file.
